The Washington Post has an article by a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan on the removal of the markers of the Generalissimo's personality cult from around Taiwan:For individual Taiwanese, Chiang -- the stoic military leader who retreated to the island in 1949 at the end of China's civil war, along with 2 million followers -- remains a polarizing figure. Political persuasion determines how his legacy translates: Either you see him as a brutal dictator who held the island hostage under martial law, or as the man who valiantly defended Taiwan against Chinese Communist invasion. Because supporters of the first view are calling the shots these days, the dictator, who died in 1975, is taking a beating.
The article is unmitigated dreck -- given space in the Washington Post to discuss the complexity of Chiang's legacy, including the millions he murdered in China and Taiwan, the fostering of personality cult around Chiang by the KMT, the island's economic and political growth, the normality of name rectification in post-colonial and post-authoritarian settings, and many other things, the author wrote a lighthearted piece about finding the remains of the General's legacy around the island. Instead of explanations that might illuminate what is happening in Taiwan, we get a list of the regalia inside the CKS Memorial:
Artifacts of note include Chiang's Western-style wedding suit (gray pin-striped pants and tails), his 1955 bulletproof black Cadillac, case after case of military medals and a gallery of photos that reads like a World War II-era film reel. With Madame Chiang turned out flawlessly in ankle-length cheongsams, the couple are pictured smiling in meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, Earl Mountbatten and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, drumming up global support for a "free" China.
What a waste.
[Taiwan] [media] [name rectification]
1 comment:
I'm not a historian but it seems to me that the only reason the communists would try to invade Taiwan was because CKS was here. I suppose it's only speculation what would have happened to Taiwan had Chiang been captured in China and his army not escaped to Taiwan. Would the communists have quickly moved to take Taiwan or would they have gone about their business without paying much attention to Taiwan? Considering the attempted communist invasion of Kinmen in 1949 was done using about 200 fishing boats full of troops it probably would have taken many years to prepare for an invasion/occupation of Taiwan and by that time Japan, the US, or other foreign power may have prevented it from happening.
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